Enclosure
by scribbledinchalk
Summary: Remus helps Sirius through the long night.


_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this fic, all credit to JKR!_

**Enclosure**

He could feel it. Remus entered the room, their room, and he could feel, immediately, the issues only he could recognise. From the moment he entered, his eyes were perpetually fixed on the bundle of soul and body, curved shapes and bones and incredibly tender feelings, in their bed, and he could smell it, the tension and all they'd been through, together and apart. He could sense it, the tangle of limbs and pasts and presents and foreseeable futures, and words not spoken but understood, and overlapping souls.

He slipped off his shoes and got ready for bed, bright eyes fixed on one person. His person.

He got into the bed, laying on his back, the space between them of 13 years alone. Lonely. Driven to utter distrust of any intimacy. Night after night. They'd deal with this, the nightmares, night after night. They didn't talk of it, but Remus was there, in an instant. He knew he wouldn't sleep. His eyes might shut, but he couldn't sleep, not for now. His eyes were sore and heavy from severe insomnia, but he just couldn't sleep when Sirius was in so much indescribable _pain_. Pain he needed to ease. He couldn't banish it and how he wished he could, for Sirius was destroyed. And he needed repair. Remus would help give him that over time.

It would take time.

Remus felt the shift instantaneously, and the sight of Sirius' contorted expression crushed him. He wondered briefly how with 13 years of distrust and solitude and stolen time, they could be together still. After everything. But it was a deep love. Messed up love, but so solid, constant. Truth be told, losing Sirius a second time would destroy Remus. So despite everything, he couldn't let Sirius go.

"NOOOO!"

Sirius' screams resounded through Remus' home. Their home.

Remus edged closer to Sirius, and gingerly brushed back a tendril of dark hair from Sirius' cheek, his fingers lingering there, slowly brushing back and forth, "Padfoot..."

Sirius' eyes snapped open, fearful and wide, and Remus was taken aback slightly. Recovering, he shushed his bedmate, "I'm here, Pads."

"Moony," Sirius mouthed silently into the dimming light, and at Remus' nod, he did something Remus hadn't seen him do since they were at school. He cried. The fear and fright and remnants of the past thirteen years were accompanied mercilessly with flowing iridescent tears and sobs racking his now sitting figure. Remus clambered up into a sitting position, and he reached his arms around Sirius, who was pulling his knees to his chest, shaking.

"What were you..." Remus took a moment to compose himself, "What were you dreaming of?" Sirius swallowed and buried his head in Remus' surrounding arms, "The night James and Lily died."

A sob escaped Sirius' throat again, and Remus tightened his hold around him as if Sirius was being held together in one piece by him. Maybe he was. "Their screams, Moony, Harry hears them...he's so like Prongs, like James, and that betrayer we called our friend-" Sirius shook with anger and bereavement. Remus realised then that this was now Sirius' grieving time. The only time he'd had to grieve freely in 13 years. Why hadn't he realised before? Remus had had his time. This was Sirius' time now.

Remus didn't want to push Sirius, but of his own accord, Sirius began to talk, mumble in bits about Azkaban. Remus tried to keep himself together, lessen the trembling of his body, fight the tears. He had to be strong for Sirius. This was Sirius' time now.

Sirius whispered frightfully in a distant, shadowy tone as if you could almost _feel _the ripped, tattered soul inside of Sirius. The Dementor-induced tears in his life. He whispered, eyes wide and sleep deprived like a child's, of vague, random snippets of Azkaban. How the sense of no happiness destroyed his good times, leaving him only with the reflection of bad times. The lifeless gaunt Lily and James...Sirius broke down, repeating, "Prongs, Prongs..." over and over, in almost inaudible, echoing whispers, enhanced by his rough, cracking voice as the raw emotion bubbled over and flew as fast as a world class Seeker down his cheeks.

And Remus was there. Remus was there, gathering Sirius in his arms, the tremble of two men now, and he pressed kisses into his cheeks where the tears had been wiped away, and into his tangled dark hair, and Sirius leant into Remus, together in the aftermath of the nightmares entirely for the first time since Sirius had come back to him.

"I...sorry for the drunk nights...needed to escape, it didn't work. I couldn't..." Sirius eventually managed to communicate his apology, albeit a little incoherently. "Ssh," Remus just murmured, "You're okay, I know..." He continued to run his fingers through Sirius' hair and they sank into a lying position.

"I love you," Sirius murmured, and drifted into sleep. A peaceful sleep compared to usual. Remus whispered into the dark, "I love you too," and leaning close to Sirius, he too fell asleep, an arm encircling Sirius' waist, and a slight smile perking up Sirius' lips in sleep.


End file.
